A short chase led to the arrest of a drug suspect and the confiscation of at least six kilograms of suspected shabu (methamphetamine) in the Good Life Hotel at Binondo, Manila on Friday.
The police caught the fleeing suspect, certain Taiwanese named Chong Chin Hao, who hid a suspect inside one of the hotel’s rooms, as reported by the National Capital Region Police Office public information officer Senior Inspector Myrna Diploma in its official press viber report.
Diploma said that if the confiscated illegal substance turned out to be shabu, it would be valued at around P40 million.
NCRPO chief Director Guillermo Eleazar said that Manila cops on Friday ran after Chong after they accidentally spotted the Taiwanese “dropping bullets” in public.
The police said Chong fled and tried to hide inside a room at the Binondo hotel in an attempt to escape arrest, but was eventually cornered. The cops then raided the place and found illegal drugs and ammunition.
According to Manila Police District director Chief Superintendent Rolando Anduyan, who joined the search wearing civilian overalls, said that they found aside from the six kilos of suspected shabu an estimated 20,000 rounds of ammunition, and 388 sealed packs of chemicals suspected to be used in the manufacture of illegal drugs.
Eleazar said the police have been monitoring Chong, who is suspected to be involved in smuggling illegal firearms to still unidentified countries.
The NCRPO chief added that Manila cops have yet to confirm whether Chong also smuggled illegal drugs and whether he operated with other drug peddlers.
The police are in the process of making an inventory of the seized illegal objects.
Meanwhile, the Court of Appeals has affirmed the freeze order on the two bank accounts allegedly used by a convicted drug lord to launder millions of pesos.
In a resolution dated June 31 penned by Associate Justice Associate Justice Rosmari Carandang and was concurred by Associate Justices Ramon Paul Hernando and Maria Elisa Sempio Diy, the CA’s Former Special Third Division denied the motions for reconsideration filed by Jeffrey Su Go, Jean Pearl Yana Go, and Jin Zhang of its decision issued on June 16, 2017.
In the said ruling, the appellate court reinstated the freeze order covering Banco de Oro Account Number 48980090 jointly owned by Jeffrey and Jean and Metrobank Account Number 7640028854 owned by Jin.
The two bank accounts were originally subject of a provisional asset preservation order (PAPO) issued on Jan. 5, 2017 by the Manila
Regional Trial Court after the investigation by the Anti-money Laundering
Council discovered that convicted drug lord Albert Chin transferred a total of P18.31 million to the joint account of the Gos from September 2012 to August 2013.
Chin was the leader of a group charged by the DOJ before the Regional Trial Court of Olongapo City in 2013 for possession of illegal drugs.
The drug bust conducted by the Philippine National Police Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force resulted in the seizure of around 432 kilos of shabu amounting to P2 billion.
During the operation, authorities confiscated several items including a transaction ticket for the deposit of PHP3.68 million to the Go couple’s account and a P4-million manager’s check payable to Zhang.
Chin and five other co-accused were convicted in September 2016 by the Olongapo RTC.
The CA said the lower court should not have ruled out the possibility that the money came from Chin’s illegal drug activities.
It added that the respondents’ arguments were not sufficient to warrant the lifting of the PAPO.
“We emphasize the finding of probable cause that funds deposited to private respondents’ accounts are sourced from Albert Chin’s involvement with illegal drug trafficking,” the CA said.
“In view of said finding, the issuance of the PAPO against the accounts of private respondents Go, among others, is to give the government the necessary time to prepare its case without having to worry about the possible dissipation of the assets that in any way may be related to the suspected illegal activity,” it explained. With PNA